Thursday, May 26, 2011

Leaving soon for a five day long trip and haven't updated in a bit. For your viewing pleasure here are some embedded Ornella Muti as Princess Aura scenes from the ill-fated 1980 Flash Gordon film. Enjoy and catch you in June.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

In my most recent post I touched on a number of unusual methods in which the dungeon itself figures into the rules of advancement for my latest project, the Bleak Beyond. I received plenty of thoughts and feedback on the Accomplishments portion of that post, but I am wondering how readers feel about the fact that I am considering expunging the tried and true notion of Experience Points in favor of the proposed Experience by Plundering approach:

Experience by Plundering

Characters gain one experience level whenever they are a member of an expedition which makes off with a Treasure Trove, by successfully returning with it to town, providing the loot was plundered from a dungeon level which is of equal or greater value than the character's own current level.

For more specifics you can read the previous post below this one. There are, as mentioned within that post, other criteria which must be met in order to advance to level 12.

Thanks to the feedback from last week's post I will be redesigning some of the Accomplishments in order to right the wrongs indicated by reader -C and taking a less heavy handed technique in order to allow more freedom of choice by the players. In other words, more interaction with the dungeon itself and a little less with the dwellers within.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

As the anchor of the campaign, around which everything revolves, the dungeons of the Bleak Beyond will factor into the very rules which govern game play. Along with the various tables and conventions specifically designed to power the game sessions, one will find a game unto itself in what I hope to be a rather brief How to Play section. Just the nuts and bolts of a game, one which can be adopted or ignored in favor of one's preferred edition.

The How to Play section of the Bleak Beyond is not intended to be a clone of D&D. It is more or less a generic system which will cover such things as Dice, Hits, Combat, Armor, Saves, Tasks and Character Advancement. The mechanics that run behind the scenes of the game. Tasks have been covered using the 5+ guide in the Art of Delving. The other terms are fairly self-explanatory. Combat is distilled to a table-less formula, which was covered here and here a few years back.

A bit of a departure from the old school? Not in my mind. I just find the method more logical and simpler to implement. The true major departure from the accepted rules is found in the guide for Character Advancement. Here's where we find the dungeon itself influencing the rules.

The Bleak Beyond does not use a hard and fast advancement via experience points system. Since nearly all of the players' efforts will involve dangerous plunges into the underworld, the only set-in-stone method for gaining levels is by successfully looting manually placed Treasure Troves. Not your run of the mill loot stashes but rather those specific riches which are mentioned in Vol. III with the suggestion to “thoughtfully place several of the most important treasures” before dicing for random distribution. Here's the core of the approach:

Experience by Plundering

Characters gain one experience level whenever they are a member of an expedition which makes off with a Treasure Trove, by successfully returning with it to town, providing the loot was plundered from a dungeon level which is of equal or greater value than the character's own current level.

Yep. No experience points whatsoever.

There are restrictions to the experience by plundering system, however. Normal advancement halts at the top level of each tier, levels 3, 6 and 9. In order to unlock the subsequent tiers which begin with levels 4, 7 and 10, the character will be required to meet certain criteria based on successful exploration of the Bleak Beyond.

The dungeon rewards characters who accomplish certain goals. For humankind there are currently 13 such accomplishments, along with one race accomplishment for each non-human class which lifts their standard maximum level and allows further progress. Players must track the number of each specific accomplishment, along with the reward gained, on the back of their character sheet for future reference and to prevent possible double-dipping.

Refs might of course allow alternate methods of advancement. It is certainly not a game world in which the only method of advancing as a character is by gaining Bleak Beyond experience. This is simply how one does so within this particular dungeon. Exploring the wilderness of the Unbidden Lands holds its own rewards, after all (which will be explained in an upcoming post).

I may or may not add to this list in the future, and since none of this is quite set in stone there is no accompanying PDF this time. Here's what I've got so far.

Accomplishments / Rewards

1.Etch name on the Big Block of So and So's Fate / Unlock 4th Character Level2.Shake the hand of Skellington in the Writhing Sepulchre / Unlock 7th Character Level3.Obtain a Morkevagten Writ of Passage from the Citadel / Unlock 10th Character Level4.Bring a Fallen Knight to justice / +1 Primary or Random5.Oust the Mayor of Awfulville / +1 Primary or Random6.Earn a Key to the Swallowed City / +1 Primary or Random7.Release a Trapped Soul from the Chapel of the Jilted Bride / +1d6 Hits8.Smuggle an intact Ubernana to the surface / +1d6 Hits9.Ring the Gilded Bell of the Excommunicated / +1 Primary or Random10.Awaken the Sleeping She-Paladin / +1d6 Hits11.Lay the Evil Dude to rest in his Domain / +1d6 Hits12.Learn Sham's Secret from Sham himself / +1 Ability of Choice13.Visit the Four Corners of Balmorphiact / +1 Ability of Choice

Non-human Accomplishments / Rewards

The following non-human accomplishments remove the standard class level maximum for each respective race. They do not however supersede the advancement accomplishments required as detailed in numbers 1-3 above.

Enter the Supreme Citadel of the Morkevagten through the front door / Unlock Dwarf 7thSurvive an arena match in the Swallowed City / Unlock Elf FM 5thLearn a new spell in the Palace of Ceaseless Extravagance / Unlock Elf MU 9thTaste Chuckhole Hooch straight from a still in Chuckhole Hollow / Unlock Hobbit 5thBring home the head of a Nisse / Unlock Aelfar FM 7thTake a nap in the Dens of Undesired Dream / Unlock Aelfar MU 7thPull one of Vrimnas's levers and live to tell the tale / Unlock Doende 7thPerform guard duty at the Shrine of the Sleeping She-Paladin / Unlock Dvergar 7thBring home a real live Crumblebumian / Unlock Irkling 7thTithe at the Church of the Excommunicated / Unlock Troldekin FM 7thBecome irradiated on the Level w/ No Name / Unlock Troldekin MU 7th

About Me

East Coast Gamer.
One time Rabble-Rouser.
Self styled D&D Grognard.
God fearing Father of two.
Happily married Man of many, many interests, too many to list.
OK, really just D&D and ...Well, that's it really. D&D.